France rent increase cap rises to 1.57% in Q3 2026

INSEE put the French rent reference index at 148.06 for the third quarter of 2026, up 1.57% on the year, the ceiling for revising a lease.

The facts

• The national rent reference index, the IRL, stood at 148.06 in the third quarter of 2026, INSEE reported on 15 October.
• Against the same quarter of 2025 the index rose +1.57%, after +1.15% in the second quarter and +0.78% in the first.
• Two separate values apply elsewhere, 145.21 in the collectivities governed by article 73 of the constitution and 143.80 in Corsica, both carrying the same annual change.
• The index is chained year on year and follows the twelve-month average of consumer prices excluding tobacco and rents, on a base of the fourth quarter of 1998.
• The level slipped from 148.37 in the second quarter, a seasonal feature of this series rather than a fall in rents.

What it means for your money

• The ceiling on rent reviews widens to 1.57% from 1.15%. It is more income than last quarter, but still a capped return.
• The cap binds only revisions of an existing lease. Rent on a newly signed letting is negotiated freely, and the national average asking rent runs near 14 euros a square metre a month.
• Owners already letting in France meet the other half of the equation, because service charges, works and the taxe fonciere sit outside the index and are not held to 1.57%.

What to watch

• The fourth-quarter index arrives on 15 January 2027 and will set the ceiling for leases renewed in January.
• Because the measure follows a twelve-month average of consumer prices, it turns later than headline inflation in both directions.

Sources: INSEE, Indice de reference des loyers, troisieme trimestre 2026, Informations Rapides n 246, 15 October 2026 https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/9081853

Market data: France